Table of ContentsIntroductionTopic AnalysisConclusionReferencesIntroduction“Criminal profiling is the process of using behavioral evidence left at a crime scene to draw conclusions about the offender, including inferences on personality characteristics and psychopathology” (Torres, Boccaccini, Miller, 2006). Law enforcement, psychologists, academics and consultants use criminal profiling as an investigative tool to help identify key personality and behavioral characteristics. “Psychiatrists and psychologists contributed significantly to the early development of criminal profiling.” This essay will discuss how criminal profiling started, became popular, and the misconception that it helps solve cases. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get the original essay Topic Analysis One of the first profiles developed was that of psychiatrist William Langer on Adolf Hilter in 1943 and has not been published only in 1972. Psychiatrist, David Brussel's 1956 profile of the New York "Mad Bomber" is the most cited example of criminal profiling. In these two profiles, the psychiatrists were able to provide precise details. The first article on criminal profiling was published by Colin Campbell in Psychology Today, 1976. Campbell asked researchers to prove that they were better than bartenders at predicting a criminal's traits and characteristics (Fox & Farrington 2018). Psychologists made significant contributions to the early development of criminal profiling, most of which is today carried out by law enforcement officers. In the 1990s, profiling became part of pop culture, thanks in part to the Academy Award-winning film, The Silence of the Lambs, and many other films that followed, as well as popular television series and profilers criminals featured in programs focused on criminal investigations. The term "profiling" is used by the general public, but the FBI calls it "criminal investigative analysis"; others call it “investigative psychology or “criminal action profiling” (Winerman, 2004). There are several reasons why criminal profiling has become a popular misconception, one being the perception that the media plays up by portraying it as effective; they report successful predations and ignore failures. The second being the “expertise heuristic”, this is the moment when we trust someone because they claim to be an expert on a subject (Lilienfeld, Lynn and Ruscio, 2009) and finally l The PT Barnum effect, when a person tends to find vague and general personality descriptions credible. Due to limitations in participant research, not much is known about the development, current status, or findings in the field of criminal profiling. 152 police psychologists said that only 3% of their time was spent profiling offenders, and 70% of them questioned whether the profiling work was valid. “Pinizzotto and Finkel (1990) examined profiles generated by four current or former FBI profilers, six police detectives with profiling training, six police detectives without profiling training, six clinical psychologists without profiling training, and six students undergraduate without training in profiling. No differences were observed between the groups, they all performed better than chance, with an average accuracy of 35% to 47%. A study was carried out over a period of forty years identifying all the